Dil Mil is a dating app that caters to South Asian singles.

Its founder, KJ Dhaliwal founded the app after he saw that his friends and family were struggling to find romantic partners. KJ makes up part of the more than 30 million Indian diaspora around the world. He knew how difficult it was to find someone that shared his values and understood his culture while living as an expat in the UK. So he decided to bring the single South Asian community together by creating Dil Mil.

Dil Mil is quickly becoming one of the most used apps for those of South Asian descent (although it is mostly used by Indians).

In this article, we’ll dive into its features, price, number of users, and other important information that will help you decide whether you should download it or not.

What Is Dil Mil

Dil Mil is a dating app targeting singles of South Asian descent no longer living in South Asia. The only South Asian country where you can use Dil Mil is India, but this is a rather new development.

Most users are of Indian descent however, the app is welcome to users of all backgrounds, South Asian or otherwise.

The app was released about 5 years ago and is still slowly gaining users.

While Dil Mil can be used for casual dating purposes, the app encourages “strong, fulfilling, and meaningful relationships.” You can see this in the many ways it allows users to customize their profiles.

Signing Up

Dil Mil is a niche app that clearly understands its audience.

During the sign-up process you’re asked to provide certain information unique to the South Asian community.

Apart from providing the basics such as age, location, and professional background, you are also asked to provide information on your ‘community.’

Your chosen community will pop up in your profile. You are also able to filter singles via community if you’re using the paid version of Dil Mil.

After you choose your community, you’re asked rapid-fire questions. Be careful how you respond. Your choices will be posted in your profile, however, they can’t be used to filter users.

Next you’ll be asked to choose 3 personality traits.

Dil Mil offers dozens of options for you to choose from, some of them being specific to the South Asian culture. These traits include:

• Cricket fan
• Garba
• Raas

Initially, you can only choose three. However, after creating your profile, you’re able to choose up to 18 traits. I recommend choosing no more than 10. Choosing 18 takes up a lot of space in your profile that users will scroll past anyway. Best to choose only your top 3-5 features so they pop out.

Next, you’re asked to upload up to six photos. Photos must clearly show your face. Dil Mil doesn’t allow users to upload photos where they use glasses, hats, or other accessories that might obscure their face.

Should you desire, you can also fill out a brief bio, respond to prompts, and record a brief message.

Some prompts include:

• I nerd out on…
• Never have I ever…
• My most useless skill is…
• What I’m looking for in my jalebi baby…
• I’ll treat you like biryani instead of plain rice if…
• On mental health day I…

Dil Mil Cost

After filling out my profile, I was presented with the screen below.

Although Dil Mil claims the app is free, upon completing my profile I was not presented with a free option. It appeared as though the only way to use the app was to pay for it.

The pricing tiers are as follows:

• $59.99/ 1 month
• $33.33/month for 3 months
• $21.67/month for 6 months

Again, Dil Mil says that it offers a free version, however, it has decreased functionality.

For example, matches are not instantaneous via the free app. The free version is set up in such a way that it teases you into paying for the VIP Elite membership. Its lack of capabilities means it’s almost useless as a free version.

Compared to other apps, the Dil Mil cost is substantially higher than apps like Tinder and Bumble.

How It Works

Dil Mil works like Bumble and Tinder.

You’re shown a bunch of profiles and are asked to swipe right for a like and left for a pass.

Once you have a match you will be notified and you can start to chat.

However, there are some other unique ways you can get in touch with the lovely singles found on Dil Mil.

Dil Mil Features

Dil Mil has a ton of unique features that set it apart from other apps.

The coolest feature might just be Mil & Chill.

It’s a live chat option welcome to all users (I’m assuming restricted by area, but I could be wrong). Here people are welcome to chat about whatever they want.

There are also conversation-specific groups. Other Mil & Chill groups include:

• Guys Only
• Something Real
• Foodies
• Brown People Problems
• New Dil-ers

The coolest thing about this feature is that sure you can talk to people you have yet to match with and feel a part of a community, but even more so you can click on anyone’s profile and choose to like them. This group chat feature can’t be found on any other major dating apps. To be fair, most group chats aren’t very deep or active, but it still gives you a chance to learn a little bit more about someone prior to swiping left or right on their profile.

This feature builds community and is a decent way to meet people quickly.

Dil Mil also has an Elite Picks section (for paying users). Elite Picks are full of women the app deems to be highly desirable. It refreshes every 24 hours. You’re able to swipe right on as many users as you’re interested in.

Never before have I seen an app that allows you to filter users based on where they were raised or their religion. 

The Raised In filter allows you to choose to only connect with users who were raised in the US, Canada, UK, Austrailia, or India.

The Religion category covers a broad range of religions. Users can swipe right on everyone from Sikhs, and Jains, to Parsis, and Christians.

Like Tinder and Bumble you can send Super Likes and Boosts. Super Likes indicate that you’re super into someone and makes you “3x more likely to match versus the normal Like” according to the app.

A Boost will allow you to skip the line so that your profile is at the top of the queue for an hour.

Dil Mil Curiosities

Dil Mil is clearly trying to innovate.

Not only is it designed with South Asian singles in mind, but it has some fairly interesting features and quirks that are worth pointing out.

Are these nuances a plus? I’ll let you decide.

If you scroll down on someone’s profile you’ll be provided with a mouthful of information.

Some info is expected such as one’s love language, diet, drinking habits, and other lifestyle details.

But then there are some offbeat details provided such as:

• Response rate
• Last time user was active
• Popularity

I’m puzzled as to why such information is provided.

This isn’t need-to-know information, nor is it information that users will really take into account when swiping. Sure, it may give us more details about how they interact with the app, but it certainly wouldn’t dictate whether I swipe left or right.

If anything, I think the response rate and last time active details could serve to annoy users should they see that a user has used the app, but has not responded to them.

As for the Popularity percentile, this will only serve to hurt a user’s feelings and perhaps deter them from swiping right on someone simply because of how desirable other people perceive them to be. The popularity score is basically Tinder’s ELO score. Tinder disputes even having an ELO score, and if they do have one, it’s certainly not available to users.

An oddball feature I do, however love is Dil Details. 

Here you’ll find the dating stats you wish you had access to on Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge.

You’ll have access to:

• Likes received
• Where you’re most popular
• The sign that swipes right on you most often
• Profile optimization recommendations
• The average age of people that like you
• Super likes received
• Request received

Anyone that has ever used a dating app has wanted to quantify their success. Dil Mil does that for you with Dil Details.

Dil Mil Number of Users

It’s always difficult to pin down just how many users a dating app has.

Here’s what we found with Dil Mil.

Dil Mil claims to have over 2 million users worldwide.

This claim is semi-backed up if we look at how many times it’s been downloaded on Google Play (over 1 million downloads). It’s been downloaded over 11,000 times in the Apple Store.

Dil Mil Search Filters

Despite having a ton of users, Dil Mil has one major flaw. It doesn’t allow you to choose to search for users who live within a set distance from you.

For example, if I want to search for people based on geographic area, these are my options:

Unlike Tinder, for example, you can’t search for users that are within ‘x’ number of miles from you.

This leads users to match with people that live hundreds if not thousands of miles away, ultimately wasting everyone’s time.

That being said, if you live in a city with a large population of South Asians, such as SF or NYC, this may not be a problem for you. Also, if you’re willing to relocate to be with a partner, this may not be a problem for you.

Is Dil Mli Worth It?

Yes and no.

It all depends on what you’re looking for.

If you only want to date South Asian women from specific backgrounds, then it sounds like Dil Mil is worth a shot. 

But remember that Dil Mil is only popular within major cities. If you’re not located in a city or area with a large South Asian population, you will only match with users from other counties or states. 

It all depends on what you’re looking for in a partner, and what you’re willing to sacrifice to be with them.

My suggestion is not wholly to rely on any one dating app. 

If dating a woman of South Asian descent is important to you, for sure download Dil Mil, but it shouldn’t be the only dating app on your phone. There are also plenty of women who satisfy your criteria on apps like Tinder and Bumble. The sheer number of users on these apps make them must-downloads. You may also consider downloading Hinge which also allows you to filter users via ethnicity. Hinge even allows users to search for singles of South Asian or Southeast Asian ethnicities.

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